>From: Johnny <  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: Little Subject

>Date: 16 April, 2002 7:07 AM

 

Hello Rasto all juiced out!

Since you’ve mentioned all those stories about death, I want to write to you how the Indians see it. The Indian shamans answer the direct question about “What is death?” that it is anything that comes to your mind, but most frequently death is considered to be the present. The most descriptive definition of death is the answer to a question “What is life?” Life can be defined as a temporary lack of death.

Take care!

Johnny

 

>From: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: Johnny < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: RE: Little Subject

>Date: 19 April, 2002 9:59 PM

 

Johnny:

I got a cramp seizure of an elevating Indian near-death mood. my daughter Simone has been stolen. I’m taking all to hell with me. am I standing up to it pretty bapasabistically? like an ostrich?

R.

 

>Attachment

 

SHAVING OF THE EYE

by Rastislav Dobos

 

Who are those beings and where are they coming from?

And what is it they are clutching so firmly in their hands?

 

“In this case it’s not about things but about human beings,” claimed Brshleek while looking at a glass jury with his tired pea eyes. “It’s about my daughter, and you’re taking her away from me!” There was nothing but glass everywhere. False glitters were breaking into bits and pieces; including himself and his belief that from time to time unexpected moments of hope appear in life on their own, which a human being longs for so much, and which are so unattainable that suddenly and inadvertently the human starts touching God with his insecure fingers and ailing soul; for only God can be of assistance if someone chancily tickles the outmost edge of His overly wise heart on a cold tearful winter evening, and if He then instinctively promises to help. And God did promise him that. Brshleek was sure of that and thought: “Where the heck are you?” And lo and behold, he has shown himself at last, trembling like a fish in a jar. All the glass got suspended in the air. The water overflowed from the jar and flooded the valley of tears, and it seemed that the desire for the Miracle Worker to be reborn has made its way once again. In an instant that great white benevolent light absorbed everybody in the courtroom with a ringing laughter, and it was shaking its frilly belly in admiration.

"Do not underestimate and insult others!" proclaimed a tattoo around the navel; his belly all covered with nothing but roly-polys. He, Who is outside of any continua, was coming; the One, whose toes ages-dead and twisted by endless time Brshleek was not even able to kiss, because he could not even measure up to them.

"It seems that the good is a very limited thing. Moreover, you're not even in my game. After all, you're playing on a completely different chess-board!" said God, who was extremely kind. Brshleek was all rolled up like a little hedgehog from that brilliant white Benevolence, and even the apple rolled down from his forehead right down under his paws. The glass jury did not let itself be disturbed by the heavenly over ornamented spectacle. The verdict was born. Hope dies. Brshleek lost and told the jury: "I’ve already prepaid your place in the cemetery. But only for five years."

The prison cell in Ilava, Slovakia, was reminiscent of an accommodation in France. Only it was larger. This is what he was telling himself. It is all about how you look at it. You can find something good in everything. During the last skiing in France he had to put on his jacket in front of the door, as he could not spread out his arms inside, and now, with peace of mind, he could include the jacket in the very lengthy list of things he would no longer need - ever.

It seemed that the prison guards were not aggressive and the one with a moustache, who escorted Brshleek here, whispered to him: "We'll put you among the tree jumpers. They are cool, they just spread broads apart; so don’t do anything stupid." The door to the cell moaned as if it had a soul, his soul. It completely finished him off. He leaned against the wall and could barely gasp.

"Well guys, I don’t want any trouble!" said the guard emphatically tapping on Brshleek’s shoulder. "I think we understand each other when I say: No problem!"

There were two of them sitting on the bunks and looking into emptiness to the point of being worn out. They said nothing. He joined them. Dinner was brought into the cell.

"Eat, you miserable bunch! You should be thankful to God for such a carefree life!"

The smaller tree jumper dug his spoon into a grayish sticky slop, probably a mixture of cement and monkey foreskins and said: "I’ll kick the Lord in the balls for this when I see him." So passed the first day.

 

On his walk in the prison yard he met with other murderers, basically his colleagues now. They were walking around a stone pit in the middle of the yard, which looked as if giants had just played marbles there a little while earlier. Brshleek slowed down and stared inside the pit, but the smaller tree jumper pushed him with a grimace nodding at the guards and said through his teeth: "It hasn’t been filled. They say it was the guards who left it as a warning that they’re the ones who always have the upper hand. The pit is a monument to an escape from many decades ago. At that time nobody even suspected that it would be possible to break out from this prison castle, but it turned out that it would. Unfortunately, one nicely screwed up day the paving over the tunnel broke in. They say it happened after the rain. It’s rumored that the jailbirds were already by the outer walls. At that time the inmates could move around in the corridors much easier and the guards had not even sniffed around the stinking dungeons as you can see them secluded over there in the corner, where felons used to piss for their souls and dug their escape with spoons."

The others were not paying much attention to him as they were walking around and bluntly gazing ahead of themselves just like during a break at an elementary school thirty years ago that seemed like an eternity. He was squinting with one eye at his fellow inmates. He got overwhelmed by a blissful feeling that they are beginning to accept him. He was cajoling himself that this is important to him, because it was very likely that he would spend the rest of his life there.

But the apparent peace lasted only for a moment. A big bearded fellow pushed his way through to him. The fellow slapped Brshleek on the ass with the palm of his hand. It sounded like a clap of dried up butter on the wall.

"Martin, go fuck yourself!" growled the small tree jumper at the bearded guy, who in turn gently raised him with the little legs dangling in the air like a pair of scissors wrapped in patches of cloth and put him down a couple of killers farther.

"You don’t like what you did, but you did it. Man, give me a break!" said Martin to Brshleek. Martin exuded the impression of being like sticky mucus. And again there was a slap on the butt. He is big, too big, thought Brshleek in misery and wanted to grab Martin’s throat by all means, but obviously he could not do it. He certainly was no unbeatable action movie hero who could knock off a gang of cut-throats. Fortunately, the guards were gradually noticing what was going on. Martin smiled and gave Brshleek a friendly hug around his shoulders like a hundred-ton bearded vice. "I was just playing around with you. Anyway, all of us here get involved in sex the best we can and, of course, you will too. It’s only a matter of time. Then remember me. But because of having intercourse with one another doesn’t mean we’re homos. It's just a necessity of life. And I can jam it into your cocoa hole right here in front of everybody, because I'm not a queer. Is that clear?!" said Martin and gently squeezed Brshleek’s balls. "Don’t be afraid, nobody’s gonna knock out your front teeth to give a good blow job. The guards are on your side and that says it all," he added with a wide smile. The circle of inmates was closing in around Brshleek. The pretended disinterest came to an end. An introduction party was in a full swing. Sharks lumped around a frightened wounded fish. It was a dance of rolled-over eyes and rotten teeth. "I hoped that I would make it here alive longer," croaked Brshleek.

"We, who cut down others like chickens, don’t understand very well why you killed without having any deeper motive. It had all the features of a great plan; a masterpiece of bloodbath. Hats off to you for getting so many people into such a small area and letting them experience the fear of death and grand finale. It’s definitely an art, but really there is no deeper motive. You don’t want to do it again. This is what we artists don’t understand," heard Brshleek and his eyes met with those of a man who uttered these words and introduced himself as Carlo. He wore a bluish face as if he were constantly choking. He acted intelligently and his face showed no signs of inner intentions.

"They took my daughter away and I was supposed to never see her again. Certain people were responsible for this. It wasn’t an abstract problem," sighed out Brshleek in a little relief. It seemed they actually were in awe at what he did; like an oddball. It was not much but could be enough for survival.

"Our lives are simply not worth it here inside, and the lives of those outside are to us no more than a white cum from super-endowed Martin. When they let us out, we can prove it in a few minutes. But we use trivial things like a knife, for example. It is very personal and humane. Even a victim must feel it this way. It's a nice celebration and not something done to a mass of people. It’s completely different from having a three-ton bomb bang on your head, which is very impersonal, and you go down on your face together with the whole house and the whole street. So it is when white-collar criminals dictate the terms as if they’d already managed to buy God; many deaths in a brief moment and nobody who sees them will really experiences the effects of death. Children scattered around the city like cheap clowns made of dirty rags. If God has seen it at least once in His lifetime, he would definitely have to repeat to Himself from the morning till the evening: ‘God, what a dickhead I am!’ We the artists don’t do it like that, and although we would like to demonstrate this on people responsible for this downfall of society, we don’t discriminate in our art. We are purists in this. When we’re outside, no one can feel safe. The old hunting instincts come back to life. But we never agree with factories of death. We are neither political bastards nor mass killers. The blood can be easily washed from our hands. But the blood on other people’s hands can’t be washed away by all the water in the world, definitely not the blood of children!"

The inmates’ walk ended. Martin was still spinning around Brshleek’s ass. "When it comes to it, even a tree can be screwed," Martin whispered.

Carlo gave him a dirty look and continued: "Simply put, political bastards feel nothing for unknown children in an oven. The children aren’t theirs. It is wonderful that there can still be found such noble people imbued with elegant and colorful thoughts, because after all, even a witch can have a taste for a baby filet, and no one has ever had a second thought about it. Politicians mostly claim that they care about the lives and future, but they mostly care about well-planned dying. That is the future of a greater benefit to them. They are possessed with a hunger for global power. You know what?" he said pulling Brshleek closer by the collar. Their eyes met. What Brshleek saw was not very uplifting: a plain death. "Fuck, it would be better if at least the warmongers busted the kids’ heads into pieces before slipping them into the furnace alive!"

Martin shoved his sweaty tongue into Brshleek’s ear. "It's too bad that guys don’t get on the rag. There is no time to take a breath."

A blade glinted in Carlo’s pocket. "If you do that one more time to my friend, the guts are gonna be flying out of your muzzle. He fought for the child. Is that clear?!"

"Is that a fact that we can’t make a deal from time to time?" shouted Martin.

"You go ahead and make a deal with whomever you want, I've already got mine," snapped Carlo.

"What kind?"

"That I will make a deal with such a queer bastard like you!" Carlo grabbed Martin by his chin, pulling it closer, and although Martin was a lot bigger, the latter did not utter a word while being dragged under Carlo’s arm into the cell.

"It's easy," said Carlo turning towards Brshleek. "Simply put, the death penalty doesn’t exist, and when I’m let out, I’ll cut one more throat. If God stands by me, I’ll cut some more, and so far He has always stood by me."

"But not even once by me," thought Brshleek. "At least not as far as I can remember."

It was already after midnight when the cell door opened and Martin stormed in. He exuded a smell of liquor. "Get up, you little bitch that gives it out to anybody," he yelled out and knocked those two off the bunk.

"But Martin, it was just by accident! It’s not like that," defended himself the small tree jumper.

"But it is," said Martin, and swiped one of them with the edge of his hand and then the other one too. Brshleek wanted to sit down on the bunk. "Stay down," Martin warned Brshleek, "and go to sleep."

"I knew that you let yourself be pricked in that little ass of yours every night!" he roared. "So, now you have to show it to me live!"

"What?" asked the big tree jumper not understanding. Martin lifted the guy’s shaft and bit him in the balls. "Ram it into him before I count to three, all the way into his bowels or else I’ll rip out the insides of your rotten balls with my own teeth!" The tree jumpers wanted to run away, but Martin locked the door and swallowed the key. "Although you’re pretty good pigs, but I am the biggest and most natural one around here." So they got down to business. The bigger tree jumper spread apart the smaller one’s buns and lathered him with a little brush for a few minutes. From behind the small fella looked like a big Snow White with an unshaven Cyclops’ eye. Martin gripped the razor in his hand and said: "I’ll do it myself." In a moment a pretty baby butt was smiling at the whole universe. "Oh, damn it," sighed Martin. "Did you have to become a bitch like this, you darn midget?" And he pinned the little guy down to the floor. The bigger fella started putting bandages on the small guy’s feet and kissing his toes. The latter let out a moan. "Jam them inside me there!"

"They taste salty," muttered the bigger one and propped him against the sink and began humping him from behind. The little fella was all pinned down.

"Put a fan under his ass," ordered Martin. "It’s awfully sweaty." The activity was going on for an incredibly long time. For hours. Brshleek almost overdosed on oxygen as he was breathing so deeply to make everyone think that he was asleep. Blood was rolling in his body in waves like squirrels in a wheel treadmill. The bigger guy pointed to the bandage. "Now tiny spiders started climbing out of you here."

"They are all over here, it’s horrible!" said the small guy shuddering, but left his ass sticking out. He could hardly see the little spiders. "And what are they doing?"

"What do you mean what are they doing?"

"Well, what are those little spiders doing?"

"Well, they’re climbing out!" retorted the bigger fella as he fumbled for a cigarette, lit it and enjoyed two long drags, but did not stop plugging away.

"Oh, dear me," growled Martin. "How in the world are you screwing him? How are you balling my little darling? Completely without any consideration as if you were poking a dead pig!" Then Martin hit the guy with a mess canteen across the tip of his ding-dong so hard that it flipped in the air. Right after that, Martin smashed the big guy against the wall really hard. "Keep on doing it!" he said throwing the big guy on top of the small one.

"Well, you’re the biggest pig beyond the shadow of any doubt, so what are you trying to prove?" asked the big guy. He could not get it up anymore even though he was shaking it up like a slab of bacon.

"I have to be even more insidious," winked Martin with a smirk.

"Do you want to beat yourself? How come?" The big guy’s bacon did not move.

"If you don’t start playing nookie with him ... but I’ve already said it!" growled Martin, bit the big guy’s balls off and whacked him over the head with a mess canteen so hard that the big guy did a somersault. "Why didn’t you put more feeling into it?" yelled Martin while hammering the big body. "You haven’t even cum well enough!" Wham! "You’re still just playing it! You were banging my little darling like some whore, but he is not a whore! He’s my love!"

"I don’t know why," replied the big body. There was a lot of blood and a lot of meat. "I really don’t know." Another blow followed. There was a thump, as if a head had just dropped into a wheelbarrow. There was silence.

The small tree jumper was tossing and turning until the next morning. His bare feet were dangling from the bunk. At daybreak he was dreaming of being free again; he almost got to the edge of the world and maybe back too. It was like this:

"The bus is threading through alpine ravines above precipices to the 3 Valleys in France. Sharp turns, a sudden skid and everything overturns down; to a point of no return. But there is a guy like a giant standing there. He is supporting a rusted chassis of the bus with his shoulder. Our lives are hanging by a bird’s feather. He is throwing overripe blood sausages inside through the broken windows. The giant has been far and wide the best player in marbles. ‘Fasten your seat belts,’ orders the bus driver without any emotion. ‘He’ll stop doing that very soon.’ The giant’s knees are giving in. Everyone begins to see how cracks are bursting open on the giant’s muscular legs. It is like fireworks of balls, as of desiccated clay. No pain, only horror. Mouths open from astonishment. Everyone’s. Bones, nerves and veins are sticking out from the clay. The floor is cracking and the bus breaks in half. ‘An ugly trick on people,’ thinks the driver, ‘to make them quickly reconcile with God.' He is one of the children of God too, but this circus is already getting on his nerves. The same scenario for centuries over and over again. It is driving him insane. Now the giant no longer has anything to stand on. Fragments are flying from his feet like a pearly waterfall. Everyone is shrouded with a twinkling veil. ‘Faith in God,’ the driver speaks at last. He is reading it from a piece of paper so as not to miss a word. ’You should know that faith in God works miracles.’ He orders them not to waste the rest of their time on craving for life, but to commend their souls to tranquility and peace. In a little while they will overcome life as a harmless disease. People stop screaming and spoon fill themselves with faith in God to the brim. Like from a mountain spring. They are not making a single move. Not a drop is wasted. The thought of an approaching death is filling them with peace and spell of the tranquil unknown in a charming infinite country, where concerns about the body are unnecessary and where a person will be only a soul, a fine substance of goodness. And so it was."  The small tree jumper got a hysterical seizure. He plopped down from the bunk like a plucked goose. He cackled: "The moral of the story is: When one doesn’t have faith, the person stands as if on clay legs, and when the person does, he or she still has clay legs. Ultimately the clay turns into dust. ‘A week later another ride,’ sighed the bus driver."

The small tree jumper was nothing but bruises. He was crouching in pain. "What definitely brings us all closer are blood sausages and freedom." He was rubbing his butt with soft purple Vaseline. It matched well his skin in the present state.

Enter the guards. "What the hell happened here?" asked the moustached one and pressed Brshleek against the bars with a baton. "I said that I don’t want any trouble."

"I don’t know. I was sleeping.”

"And you little midget?"

"I was sleeping like a log.”

"So we’ve got it now. This big guy over here slipped and banged himself up on the sink."

 

The doctor was leaning over the white body on a white examination table. The head was without a skull. Like a walnut neatly taken out of its shell. "I can’t give him any more cortisone. It would kill him," he said running around and using his stethoscope all over the body. "Too bad I only have one stethoscope. Otherwise we could listen together," he winked at Brshleek. "It's very interesting."

Brshleek was sitting on a chair and he could not move even when the doctor licked his cheek. The intermittent rustle of the mangled leaves on the white table was subsiding. The autumn was over.

"That's interesting. I can hear nothing. Absolutely nothing," grumbled the doctor to himself, "only a strange soothing silence where life was effervescing just a moment ago." He pushed Brshleek to the table, put the stethoscope on him and began pressing Brshleek’s hand wherever he could on the white body. Brshleek apathetically helped him remove the briefs off the white body. "You see, there's absolutely nothing!" He laid the chestpiece on the penis. "Not even a tick. I hope you don’t believe in the afterlife and similar nonsense. From my many years of professional experience, and I can put it in writing that I have never seen anyone, who croaked in this room, feeling up on tits again. After all, what is reincarnation, just churning the shit over and over again? What would it be good for?"

The guards entered. "What’s with him?" they asked referring to the white birdie on the white table. The doctor produced a clear smile like a bright white sun. He strongly squeezed Brshleek’s hand. As if he wanted to squash the stethoscope in his hand and said: "But he’s healthy like a reindeer." The doctor’s knuckles turned white.

"What reindeer?" grinned the guard.

"Christmas," retorted the doctor impatiently and covered the body’s white genitals. "And leave us alone, I still have a lot of white work to do!"

 

Carlo was roaming around outside. Brshleek’s knees sapped like clay dust. Carlo caught him under the arm. "Everybody, take a walk!" yelled the guards whacking the walls and heads with the batons.

"Walk!" hissed Carlo. "You can’t just sit here like a hen on eggs." And slowly he pushed him out into the prison yard.

A priest with a hood weighing down over his forehead was heading towards the infirmary in a quick step. His face was not visible. His bible was flying from one hand to the other like a fake butterfly. He stopped by Brshleek.

"Peace be with you, my son. Were you with him at the last moment, and didn’t he wish to leave any message for God through me? I'd take care of it in the evening," he said pointing a crucifix at Brshleek. "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti."

Brshleek straightened up and said: "You’ve got that Christianity invented sloppily!" His knees were no longer sagging so much. The priest was dumbfounded by the aggressive tone, and one could feel it in his trembling voice: "Jesus said: ‘Do not be murderers like my father. Be good.’" He was all ablaze, a burning wilding. "I also say this because faith is a deep human need, but who gives it a hoot about Jesus nowadays? Your eyes, my son, are shining with malice and hatred. But if evil can be forgiven, we can remove it."

"Bullshit!" Brshleek went rabid. His foam flooded the corridor. "If I had the opportunity to escape from this whacky planet before you and your God, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second!" The weighted down hood disappeared in the infirmary and Brshleek’s foam as if in fog, whispering words that could barely be heard: "For God’s sake guys, just don’t start making yourself believe that all these things, life, death, cell, freedom, money, poverty, love and hate, all of these, have some deeper meaning. No, they certainly don’t! It's all nonsense. Look for the balance! Life is not the most frightening place. Oh, if only you knew!"

Exasperated Brshleek grumbled as the foam was disappearing: "Why does the monk still keep coming around here? What for?"

"Watch out," said Carlo. "Don’t let yourself be bamboozled by those fairy tales from the Bible. They’re just snippets about God. God is significantly stronger and more dreadful. God does not forgive," he sighed. "Don’t fall for it that you can slander God's good-natured henchmen with impunity. Anyhow, thanks to the priests souls will depart in peace, unlike the one that is still choking me. There are many of that sort everywhere." His face turned bluish the moment he remembered the choking soul. "Just look at that one in the infirmary. He’s fine. The Last Rites were done in the nick of time." Right afterwards, Carlo shook the departing soul’s hand, which Brshleek did not see. "That wasn’t a common tree jumper you would like to think of as." When Brshleek recalled the tree jumper’s performance several hours long the night before, he saw a quite unusual sexual machine in him. Suddenly Brshleek smiled. The soul’s touch soothed him. "At one time," Carlo continued, "before his flesh turned white, he used to be a terrific guy. In the commie days he used to throw eggs at the podiums. It was a capital offense at that time. He simply used to say that he would had rather flung grenades. Then he became so fond of the world in the slammer and its clear rules that he wanted to remain inside. ‘Better that than the downfall of an insatiably greedy society outside. Oh, the blessed land of commies. Now that communism wasn’t good enough for us, we’ll have to settle with a little,’ used to say the tree jumper. I recall how we were shoveling the snow one day. They unexpectedly let us out among people, right into the calamity. There were guards everywhere. You should have seen those common peons how they were staring at us uncomprehendingly while I was looking down on them like God. I had a knitting needle hidden in my prison coat. I got a deal on it for two boxes of squares. It was only up to me, up to my decision that those peons would still be alive. It's such an unexpected and exciting sense of power, particularly an irreversible power. God knows this. Religion sanctifies killing." They took a swig from a flask of tobacco tea. "Victims live in the belief that death is something special, unique, but death is natural, simple, essentially plebeian; you go out into a street and you're dead." Carlo’s face turned blue even more and swelled up. "The spirit of the man they killed in my cell still threatens me and pulls a plastic bag over my head. For sure he didn’t depart in peace. I’m always afraid that I’ll fail to tear the bag down in time. Even at night I can’t close my eyes." Brshleek gave him a hand. Pieces of plastic floated down into the giant pit.

"Simply, you have to take things as they are, otherwise you’ll go nuts," said Carlo. He rubbed his neck. Brshleek knew it very well.

 

They began going to the prison workshops. They drilled something and lathed something, which Brshleek had learned to do while still back at a trade school in Dubnica, and the old clunkers they were working with here reminded him of his youth. Brshleek made a simple template and drilled ten times more holes than others. Right after that the standards were made more difficult for all.

"Don’t you be breaking no records here, young man!" Brshleek was told. What he produced was carted away straight onto a scrap heap.

"I enjoy doin’ it."

It was better to kill time like this than killing one another. The prison simulated an ideal situation of the society: only work, fast night food, quick nap, occasional walk and work again. This way the prisoners did not even pay attention to being behind the bars and it reminded them of a normal life.

In spite of that, Brshleek was laughingly boasting to Carlo while cleaning the drill: "I have so much time on hand that if I wanted to write, I definitely could cook up something worth the Nobel Prize, something about the human goodness." Carlo also laughed, but strangely, as if the great mood was choking him. He had a bluish grin and said: "Simply put, here it's just like in Mexico. Once I had some business in Mexico City and we were having dinner in one local joint in La Zona Rosa. Just picture this, a moment before our arrival, a European, supposedly also from Slovakia, maybe Slovenia, which many Mexicans confuse very easily, had been taken to a hospital because he could not breathe after eating some jalopeños. Like an idiot, he made a bet and ate one of the strongest ones. Oh, Mexico," he drifted into a daydream, "a land of scorpions, rattlesnakes and earthquakes. I guess I would be better off in a rattlesnake’s nest than here. D’you have any idea that when a rattlesnake bites you, it’s all over for you? It puts digestive juices into you, which turn the blood into black crap and you’re looking up at the grass roots. There are few people in Mexico with no arms or legs, who had luck to get a quick help and were saved. The rattlesnake has a hard character, like me. When it makes up its mind, it will go after you and bite you even through your hiking boots. Against little scorpions, all you need is a shot of serum, but rattlesnakes play a different ball game. Once there was a wild earthquake, we barely managed to run out of the building, and only outside I found out that I had left all my personal documents inside. Without a work visa and passport, I was done with. I flew in and the earth started moving. I caught on something under the door frame. It probably saved my life. I was one of the first to be pulled out of the rubble. Allegedly a cut-off rattlesnake head had been discovered just a short distance from me. Even as dead as it was it went after me. It missed my face by a few inches. Afterwards I felt like I was reborn thousand times. I fled from the hospital and I was getting loaded with mezcal until the morning. I lucked out to get the warm almost every time. This was a local custom of respect. Even so, everyone thought that I was making things up because nobody had ever seen a rattlesnake so deep in the city. In the morning I got robbed, which is a local fashion there, and when I finally sneaked home, to top everything off a gang busted in behind me, right into my apartment. Perhaps I wasn’t careful enough. I have always taken the elevator one extra floor up, and then from there I would walk downstairs to my place when no one was watching. But this time I was ripped on mezcal. I barely made it to lock myself in the bathroom. But the whole thing was good for shit. Worse come to worse, I didn’t have my cellular and so I had no way to call for help. The gang was after me. They started smashing the bathroom door, which I fortunately spent a good buck on, and when they got to the metal guard plate, they stopped. Too bad there were so many of them, else I could have had some fun with them. After looting my apartment, they kicked the door a few times and then I could go and sit down in the kitchen. All was broken up, there was mess everywhere including dishes I had forgotten to wash after breakfast. Lurking bugs of different sizes from the entire building, perhaps even the whole district, gathered there shaking their tiny heads at an unexpected feast. I've had it up to my ears. I went back to Slovakia. Meanwhile, my girlfriend there hosed up all my accounts, changed the locks in the apartment and disappeared so all I had left was to go graze the goats. Then I was just thinking about going to Nicaragua when I was falsely accused and thrown in the can right here in Ilava based on a circumstantial evidence. For all I know, my old bag could have squealed on me." Carlo winked at the guard with the moustache, who had been eavesdropping on them for some time.

"Oh, guys, I know you are all innocent," grinned the guard. "But those women can be real bitches. I found my wife with another guy in my own bedroom. She laughed in my face. They no longer even bother to mask it. They’re rude like hell, because they think that no one can even touch them, and if you give them a slap, they’ll sue your ass off. I'd rather take a 12-gauge shotgun and blow my wife away to kingdom come. But I can’t stand the sight of blood. On top of it, she is still feasting on bloody steaks and tartars right under my nose.

'Aren’t you afraid of dying when you eat it raw like that?'

'Then I could neither make love nor breathe if I were afraid of dying,' and blood was trickling through her teeth and onto the plate." The guard sighed: "An unmanageable breed."

"That’s for sure," remarked Brshleek. "When you get married, it’s like you’ve let a Trojan horse into your life."

"You know," the guard said giving him a friendly hug around the shoulders, "them women are awfully awful. It’s dreadful of them. What they’ve been representing for the last decades is a total female terrorism. They’ve subdued the education of future generations, judiciary, legislature and decision-making positions to the ground. If we don’t straighten’em out, they’ll take over the control of the whole world."

"At least we won’t have to worry about the demise of civilization. Anyway, there are potential children hidden inside of them - many children. They are multipliers. They’ve got it in their genes," Carlo cut him short. Again Carlo felt the plastic bag and started turning blue.

The moustached guard did not let himself be interrupted. "Women have usurped all the rights. Someone should have finally given them a good slap over their fingers. The order of things they are making us follow is unnatural for us. Our problem, the problem of civilization is no longer South vs. North but the fact that beings, upon which we are biologically dependent, are constantly blackmailing and sucking us dry as if we were some kind of dummlings and babblerlings. The problem of this millennium is the cruel feminine dominance. Their hard super rights can’t be tolerated anymore. A few centuries from now women, lesbians and queers will be masters, and men, real men, will daily proclaim on all TV screens to the entire universe how happy they are to have tamed the anger and violence in themselves, how pleasant it is to be just pecking dummies in women’s lean self-confident hands and bamboozled by women’s calculating gentle sweet talks. One thing is certain, when they no longer need us for the production of semen, we will become extinct. That’s why I understand your valiant deed," said the guard and embraced Brshleek. They were like knights. "I wish I was strong enough to do the same with my floozy that’s whoring in my flat. If only I could find the strength in myself to twist that little swan neck of hers."

Brshleek was moved. There appeared a tear in his eye. "Yes, basically they’ve taken my daughter away and I ended up looking at the bottom of the barrel. The only thing I was left with was a hollow unceasing pain – an overwhelming bitterness and nothing but agony for the rest of my life, a purgatory on earth. A woman’s decision based on women's laws, and yet in the court they’d acted like I should’ve been happy about how nicely they’d solved everything for me. One can stand up against such women’s horseshit only with a gun.”

Other guards joined in. They fired into the ceiling. Bullets were clanging up and down like acorns against an anvil. There was a great hullaballoo from it. "Vendetta has its charm! This is what the judge of that court needed to teach him a lesson! We are not animals, and judgments against humanity are not acceptable! All those court officials need to be massacred into ground meat!"

Brshleek felt satisfied and proud, probably for the first time in months. Now he already thought that this liberating feeling, for which he had risked so much, could never be felt in this hole. But suddenly there it was. "Too bad I didn’t have time to get the judge. Besides that, it was a female judge. At least one more crumb of humanity should be expected in that case. What I’ve committed was of my own choice and I had no other alternative. Secular justice should leave you at least some whatever opportunity to go on living normally. But in most cases this is not true." All wept in each other’s arms. Then the guards brought this miraculous moment to an end. They drew their batons and chased the inmates into their cells.

While running, Martin put his hand on Brshleek’s butt and whispered: "You know what, when I get out of here, I’ll focus on women only. You’ve really opened my eyes. Until now it was just for fun. But from now on it will be my mission. I’m turning into a dignified human hyena. A reward will follow." Martin screwed on 10-pound vices on Brshleek’s nipples. "I have an aim for my unappreciated soul. I hope they’ll soon let me out for good behavior." He chuckled maliciously in all sincerity. "And you don’t have to give me the vices back."

In the evening Carlo came to see Brshleek and stuffed a pillow into the tree jumper’s ears.

"Beware of the moustached guard. Keep distance from him. He’s been after you since the very beginning and now he’s got you. It seems that he can’t count to five but knows how to kill people. He’s like the prison’s executioner. I don’t know whether for hire from outside, but maybe so. Martin flies in it with him like a jet, and unlike us noble killers, Martin’s a backstabber. He even did in the one who keeps on choking me every night. Simply, you haven’t cleaned up everyone outside and that’s something you can’t get away with. Watch out for the guard, he actually doesn’t like blood, so he pulls bags over the heads. If you stay in the cell by yourself, he’ll snuff you out. Think about it, because in a moment it will be all over for you. Your cell is already being prepared for a heavenly spectacle. Now just the two of you are left here. By the way, these ornaments on your chest look amazingly sexy. They’re clinking beautifully, like bells - death knells."

 

The following days Carlo was avoiding Brshleek. When they happened to meet, Carlo just mumbled something, and immediately headed away. His eye was half-shaven and his face bluer than ever before. Martin was becoming saucier by the minute, but Carlo pretended not seeing it and consequently Brshleek broke down to pieces. He was getting jimjams in his hands, so he rather kept them in his pockets. His eyelids were fluttering, but he could not stick them into his pockets. In front of the others, Martin kept shamelessly shoving his fingers into Brshleek’s fly and sending him French kisses through the air. Out of a sudden they stumbled in the shower, and as if by a sheer accident, he knocked out Brshleek’s front teeth on the floor. "Oh God, what cute chops you have!" exclaimed Martin and forced Brshleek a bloody kiss. He thrust his tongue all the way into Brshleek’s throat. "Get on with it quickly," thought Brshleek. He could not even move. He was just leaning against the wall.

One morning as Brshleek was standing by a drilling machine and Martin was whacking off his whale ding-dong with Brshleek’s hand in his pants, a piece of iron heavy like a rail banged on Martin’s feet. Carlo pulled a knife big like a sword out of his pocket. A company of elite guards and more violent prisoners immediately gathered around. Carlo passed the knife over Martin’s throat and right afterwards he rammed it into his own chest. Brshleek’s drill was shaking so hard that the drill bit broke. The guards started applauding with cheering cries and threw a couple of cigarette packs on the floor.

"The body is full of cavities filled with nothing, which have no life force," said Carlo who pulled out the knife and marked a red cross on Martin’s forehead with it. "Stop getting in my way or else in your case I’ll miss those cavities!" Then Carlo lifted the rail. Martin, with mouth agape, dropped to the ground. He could no longer stand on his flattened fins. The show was over followed by a few blows of batons. Carlo picked up the cigarettes packs and went to the cell with Brshleek. While they were cooking tobacco tea, Carlo said: "That man’s spirit doesn’t let me sleep. I had a dream that I was amidst a colony of divers on a wooden platform in the middle of the Atlantic. Being there was simply wonderful. I plunged into the water and a wave tacked me down to the bottom and nailed me there like a piece of plankton. And when it rolled over after a minute, I pulled myself up to the surface to take a breath. My eyeballs were popping out. Death on my tongue, I was starting to receive cheerful messages from the world beyond. The one was sending them to me was extremely meticulous about them. I did not even want to come back to this life anymore. Fortunately, I only know this: the messages were only piles of crap, a grand illusion. Only thanks to this intuition I was able to reach such a venerable age as a killer. Again I was sinking to the bottom, and when I woke up, I had a plastic bag over my head. Martin tied me to the bed and started shaving my eye. Now he’s more daring. I warned you, and yet I was left alone overnight. They’re getting ready for me and not you. My time is coming, sooner than I expected. You know, I thought I'd give you a hand with that writing, but what I’d write, would only be a bloody horror novel about human atrocities without the Nobel Prize, nothing pleasant just reality. Any asshole artist can create this. So I rather paint on water," he pointed at a half-full washbasin. There was a beautiful reddish picture full of blood, flowers and freedom in it as if sprinkled with pearly dust. "This is what I’ve learned to do tonight in the middle of the Atlantic. Simply paint only what you can imagine: the myth of cosmic forces. It’s unbelievable, but some naive civilizations have been doing these things for thousands of years, as in the beginning and so even now, just because it's nice."

"I can’t leave you in it by yourself. I’ll go to the guard to put me in the same cell with you. He likes me."

Carlo pulled him closer and said: "Don’t give it a shit about me. Don’t you even think about it or else you’re finished. My bell has already tolled." Then he kicked Martin who was firmly clutching a plastic bag in his hands and pushing his way into the cell. "God will soon cut you up into pieces like a dumb animal - a fascinating fate."

 

Even so, Brshleek went to the moustached guard to see whether anything could be done about the planned murder. The guard cursed at Martin while making marks of his teeth on the railing and pointing the baton at the small tree jumper on the other side of the yard. "How come he’s still alive?! An order for his head was already placed a week ago. Because of his white ass you’re forgetting where the north is," said the guard and whacked Martin over his temples. Brshleek asked the guard again. The guard’s eyes glittered dreadfully. "Carlo is a dangerous killer and this joint is not a pigeon hole. People are not here for a reward, but to accept a just punishment. Moreover only God and I know what justice is," said the guard and kindly stroked Brshleek’s head. The air was softened by a white pearly dust. "God is particularly the hope that you die quietly." The guard snapped his fingers. Martin raised Brshleek by his pants so hard that they cut into his ass and rasped: "If you have any common sense, you won’t meddle into it," and Martin kicked Brshleek with his fish fin into the giant pit. In a moment the giant’s marbles fell on Brshleek.

 

Next morning the moustached guard was found in Carlo's cell with a plastic bag over his head. That terrible battle froze in his face and on top of it the protruding shaved eye too as if begging for a breath of life. Martin cut up on a plate laid next to him. The guards were beating Brshleek hard all day, including the small tree jumper and others too. No one knew how the killing happened.

"It was the dead man’s spirit that obliterated them," claimed Carlo battered to kingdom come. "I didn’t do it. After all I was saying it all along that the spirit would be here and indeed it was here at night. All of a sudden it fell down like a curtain from the window and made the hit."

After a week, Carlo was limping while on a recreation walk like a pallid freak. He sat down with Brshleek on the outskirts of the prison yard. The giants were playing marbles. There was a horrible rumble. "I wrote that false indictment against myself on my own. Hell, it was for my brother’s sake why I did it!" he whispered through his broken lips. "Every single night his soul was torturing me and I was choked by a terrible pain and hope of revenge. That was my real reason for leaving Mexico. I was like a madman. I did exactly what they did to him, in the same cell and the same way. God wanted it so. Our lives turned into an endless revenge."

"I’m supposed to meet Him right here." Brshleek’s mind was all beaten into pulp. Only the marbles were rattling in his head. Everything was shaking in its foundations.

"It's only a question of time before they find out about it. Everything is being investigated. They’re working on it day and night," said Carlo. He was accepting the fact that he had only a few inches of life left. Yet, somewhere at the bottom of his soul a carefully hidden drive was smoldering to leave all this madness and flee to the other side of the world, hide in the waves of the Atlantic and do anything just to live for a few moments longer. After so many years of an intense day-to-day struggle to save his own skin, now he suddenly felt such despair. Already it was almost as clear as the sky through the bars that it was all just a scam.

Carlo and Brshleek remained silent until the morning. Then there appeared a twinkling shadow and Brshleek asked: "Who is this guy, where is he coming from? Is that you Lord? Why do you look so funny, Lord, like a down-trodden man?" Brshleek was astonished. "But you should look far more divine." There was a red sky covered with magic silver-leaf-like ripples above the prison castle. Then all got flooded by His white light. It tweeted with a typical cheerful divine accent: "And from now on nothing is black anymore, only white, my little children. Such is the Christian version of the truth." It was dawn, a white silverish day. "Of course, all absolute statements are relative to motivation. Anyhow, what do you live so much for? You are all going to die anyway!"

There were knots of pearly dust in the air everywhere, a clear evidence of future’s absence. Brshleek issued dry sobs. Ornate frost made cracks on the giant’s legs. "Where is Carlo?" he asked the guards. There was no answer. "Is he sick?" Again, no answer.

"No, he just won’t come,” they replied.

Unfortunately, only now it was obvious how very wrong everyone here was. The situation was in fact even worse. For God cannot make a happy ending for everything. That way He would get tired of the same old show very quickly.